Arriving at the Cottage on Ohran Ridge
This is post 9 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Previous: Xantcha and Ratepe Take Flight Together
Almost There
Chapter 8 opens in the dark. Xantcha is exhausted, pushing the sphere through freezing night air, trying to get them to the cottage on Ohran Ridge. It’s been more than a month since she left. She’s never been gone this long.
Ratepe tells her to land. She refuses. He tells her she’s making mistakes. She insists she’s fine, then promptly tumbles into his lap after overcorrecting the sphere. She won’t admit she’s scared of what’s waiting at the cottage.
And Ratepe sees right through her. “More afraid of the man you call Urza, I think, than of any Phyrexian.” That’s a brutal observation from a guy who still doesn’t fully believe Urza is real. But he’s not wrong. Xantcha has been dreading this reunion the whole time. She bought a slave, trained him to pretend to be Urza’s dead brother, and now has to present him like a solution to a problem she’s not sure she fully understands.
There’s a nice moment here where we learn how Ratepe has changed during their time together. After the village rescue, the women trimmed his hair. He scrubbed himself clean. He got new clothes. He’s started looking like a person again, not a slave. He’s got swagger. Charm. He reminds Xantcha of the real Mishra, which is exactly what she needs but also what frightens her.
The Moment of Truth
They clear the ridge. The cottage is there. Eldritch light leaks through the windows.
“He’s locked himself in,” Xantcha mutters. She can’t hide her disappointment. Ratepe, practical as ever, points out that a locked door at midnight is pretty normal behavior.
The sphere touches down and collapses. Supplies scatter everywhere. A box corner slams Xantcha’s ankle. She’s cursing when the magical locks vanish and Urza appears in the doorway.
“Xantcha! Where have-?”
Then he sees Ratepe. His eyes start glowing. And Xantcha realizes she never considered the possibility that Urza might just kill any stranger who showed up at his door.
Brother
This is the scene the entire book has been building toward. Xantcha panics. She tries to get between them. But before she can do anything, Ratepe speaks one word. Not in the ancient polyglot language Xantcha spent weeks teaching him. In plain Efuand dialect.
“Brother…”
Xantcha nearly has a heart attack. She taught him the old word for brother. She drilled him on it. He’s using the wrong language. She’s ready to kill him herself.
But then something incredible happens. Urza’s golden light flows toward Ratepe and surrounds him. And Ratepe doesn’t flinch. He just keeps talking. “You wished to see me, Brother. It’s been a long, hard journey, but I’ve come back.”
Urza tests him. “The tent was not red, and I said no such thing,” he says about their last meeting before the final battle. And Ratepe, channeling every bit of Mishra’s stubborn pride, fires back: “Do you call me a liar, Brother?”
This is what Xantcha finally understands. Between Urza and Mishra, attitude mattered more than facts. The real Mishra was supremely confident and never conceded a point. Ratepe has that exact energy. The details don’t matter as much as the defiance.
The Mind Search
Urza reaches out and touches Ratepe’s face. Not with normal movement. He’s there and then he’s touching him, faster than muscle can move bone. And it nearly kills Ratepe. Urza is searching his mind, looking for answers about what the Phyrexians did to Mishra. He doesn’t notice that Ratepe is bleeding from the nose, trembling, going limp.
Xantcha throws herself into the light and grabs Urza’s arm. “You’re killing him.”
Urza drops him. He’s confused. He says Ratepe’s mind is empty, just like Xantcha’s. No answers. He takes this as proof that there will be more Mishras, a “line of Mishras, each bearing a piece of the truth.” He walks toward his door, excited, talking about negating time.
He’s completely mad.
Xantcha kneels beside Ratepe, believing he’s dead. She begins straightening his body for burial. This is the moment she feels the weight of what she’s done. She didn’t just fail. She betrayed this man. She found him, bought him, taught him a role, and brought him here to die.
Then Ratepe’s hand squeezes hers. He winks.
He was playing dead.
The Comeback
Here’s where Ratepe earns his place in this story permanently. He sits up and drops a bomb on Urza. He brings up Kayla Bin-Kroog, Urza’s wife, and asks a question that cuts to the bone: “How and why are you so certain Harbin was not your son?”
The lights go out. Xantcha thinks Urza has vanished. But when the light returns, it’s a different Urza. A young Urza. Dressed in dirt-laborer’s clothes. Smiling. Reaching out to take Ratepe’s hands.
“I have missed you, Brother.”
Urza starts babbling about his inventions. He wants to show Mishra everything. But Ratepe stays in character. He folds his arms. He refuses to stand up until Urza acknowledges Xantcha. “You’ve had Xantcha. He’s not ’no one.'”
And then Urza says something devastating. Right there, with Xantcha standing ten feet away, he tells Ratepe that she’s Phyrexian. A failure. A mistake. “You can talk to her, but only a fool would listen.”
Three thousand years of loyalty, and that’s what he thinks of her.
Xantcha can’t meet Ratepe’s eyes. She mouths the word “Don’t.” Don’t defend me. Don’t blow this. Focus on Phyrexia. And Ratepe, bless him, reads the situation perfectly. He tells Urza they should stop arguing and start talking.
The door closes. The light is gone. And Xantcha is left alone in the moonlight, hauling food supplies.
My Take
This chapter is emotionally brutal. Lynn Abbey does not let anyone off the hook. Urza is brilliant and terrible and casually cruel. Ratepe is reckless and brave and somehow perfect for this role. And Xantcha, who orchestrated everything, gets the worst outcome she could have imagined: success. Her plan worked. Urza bought it. And the price is hearing the man she’s served for millennia call her a fool and a failure in front of the one person whose opinion has started to matter.
The “Brother” scene is genuinely one of the best moments in the entire Artifact Cycle. It’s tense, surprising, and emotionally layered in ways that tie-in novels rarely achieve.